


let me be easy to love

by dustywords



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 20:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustywords/pseuds/dustywords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where goes the darkness if there is no heart left in the chest?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exposition

**Author's Note:**

> ah, yes. instead of studying (or dying) i wrote a thing, divided into three parts and set in season 1, so quite au-ish. don't even ask. it's a character study. and a study of hearts and magic and darkness. and swan queen, because i can't write anything else. (title once again stolen from a song, this time it's "easy to love" by the jezabels.)

There is something about the blonde that irritates her to no end. But she can’t quite name it. It’s like a lingering thought, a long forgotten dream in the back of her head that she can’t remember, no matter how hard she tries. So she stops. 

But the feeling stays and she loathes it as much as the blonde herself. 

 _Emma Swan_. 

* 

She took a chainsaw and destroyed it. Sawed off one or two branches. Without a warning. Her tree, her beautiful apple tree. It is the only constant in her life, the only thing that has a special place in her soul. Since always and forever. And now it is ruined, destroyed, flawed. 

She closes her eyes, trying to come up with a plan that will rid her of that obnoxious blonde. She doesn’t care that she’s Henry’s biological mother. At the end of the day it is still her who’s raised Henry. That woman has no right to even think herself to be Henry’s “other mom”. (It’s is good that she can’t read the mind of others, then. She knows, just knows that if that were the case she would have killed Emma Swan the second they’ve met only for her thoughts.) 

It scares her, in moments of weakness. It scares her that she hates her so much. She doesn’t think about it. Her subconscious reacts, trying to tell her something. It’s not a decision, not really. She just goes with it, she lets herself be dragged away by that emotion.

It makes her feel alive, after all this time.

Still, the gnawing feeling of something missing, an important detail.

But she doesn’t know what it is. 

*

Weeks pass and she is almost sure that the reason why she hates the blonde is that she partly admires her. No one, not even that imp, Mr Gold, dared to stand up to her like that irritating deputy, who eats too many bear claws, drinks too many hot cocoas and seems to be the perfect scapegoat for Henry’s lately accumulated breaches of the rules.

She sighs.

Sips at her cold coffee.

And wonders, why, why is that damn blonde always sneaking into her head? It feels a lot like a headache to think about her, but she can’t stop, _can’t, can’t, can’t_. She groans. 

Good god, when will it end? 

* 

She saved Henry. 

Henry is alright. 

Alive. 

God, she could kiss her. 

_Wait—_

No. This is not happening.

*

The problem is that it already began long before she noticed it. And now it is too late. Now she is standing in her vault, Emma’s punch is still burning, aching, making her feel alive even if it’s because of the anger in her veins, she’s filled with something she hasn’t felt in quite some time—jealousy. Its ugly venom is rushing through her bloodstream and perhaps this is the point she should turn around and leave instead of entering that vault further and taking Graham’s dusty out of the box heart in her hand.

She feels his happiness.

His joy. 

 _Emma Swan_ , all written over this poor, weak heart. One squeeze, just to see if she still has it. If it still works, even in this world. If she still knows how to—ah, yes. There is the power. 

And there is the dust and the anger and so much trouble. 

She wants to rip her own heart out, if she still had one.

*

No one knows.

It’s the beauty of a land without magic. No one knows what caused Graham’s sudden death. Why his heart simply stopped to work. A mystery, one that is grieved about. 

Except her son. Henry. He suspects, because he’s the only one paying enough attention. He always suspects something and he is alarmingly often close to find out the truth. To find more than the book tells. That damn book. That damn town. That damn curse.

She hates herself a lot lately. Sometimes she struggles with that emotion, because while it is strong and almost fulfilling to forget the emptiness in her chest, it is also wrong. Atrocious. It needs to stop, but how, how, how. There is no heart. There are no boundaries, nothing. _A void that cannot be filled_. Dear god, Maleficent’s words. She hasn’t thought about that day for quite some time. 

She wants to laugh. Little did that dragon lady know about Regina’s heart. 

There is none. 

She has none. 

Only Henry. He is everything that counts. The last thing that keeps her together. Her anchor. The last supporting pillar of her miserable life. 

At least, it was like that before the outsider with a red leather jacket and a yellow car rolled into town. 

* 

In retrospect it shouldn’t be such a surprise what happens some months later. She likes to tell herself that she felt pure rage and fury with Emma Swan when she attacked her precious apple tree with that chainsaw, but that’s a lie. 

She felt _lust_. 

Emma Swan is new, exciting and _different_. 

Not boring. 

She not only admires her strength. She longs for it. Wants to have it, taste it, be a part of what could be a happy ending in the eyes of many people. (People like Mary Margaret, for example.) 

And so she lets the kiss happen, hoping for something she knows she will never have. She is living a lie, falling for an illusion, and still she doesn’t care. She is ready to pretend. The whole town is a mere pretense, not even the lasagna at Granny’s is real. It’s not homemade, it’s deep-frozen.

But Emma. Emma is real. And warm. And soft. And smells like cinnamon. And tastes like hope. And— 

Magic. 

“ _She’s important isn’t she?_ _This mother._ ” 

A potion, to forget that said mother of her little prince. 

It’s Emma. 

Brimming with True Love’s magic, because not only is she Henry’s mother, but she’s the Savior. She gets it, the whole thing, and it’s huge, because everything had been a lie. The curse, her life, Daniel, nothing to rely on. Liar, liar, liar. Each and everyone around her, especially that imp.

 _Rumpelstiltskin_. 

“Are you okay?” 

How dare this woman to ask her this. To hell with her. But her brain cuts short and they kiss again, because Emma hasn’t noticed any change. But the potion wore off. She remembers her rage about the lost child of Snow White, the importance of that child and now— _ew_. She’s making out with— 

She pushes her slightly away, because it’s too much—it’s not really the age difference, though it is a subject that she should pay some thought, later—, this thing, and Emma knits her brows together and watches her closely. “Okay. I know, I am perhaps not the best kisser, but was it really that bad that you have to cry?” It’s meant as a light joke, obviously to calm her own nerves, but Regina blinks and barely reacts to the words. She also barely hears the words, _because Emma is holding tenderly her face in her hands_. 

Ah. The tears. She wants to have a heart, to finally feel. She just wants to feel again. Not the rage, the hatred, all the things that don’t require a heart in the chest. She wants to feel the rest that was denied to her _for decades_. The tears are empty, just leaving her eyes and pouring down like lazy rain, but the sadness doesn’t, because there is none. It’s madness. She’ll lose her sanity because of that woman one day. “It’s just …” 

“We don’t have to …” 

 _Stop being so nice_ , she wants to yell. 

But her brain. 

It seems to be lost as her heart. 

Because she kisses Emma Swan again. 

Maybe that’s her new, her personal curse. 

* 

She tells her to go home. _Headache_ , was the excuse and noble, gentle Emma Swan kissed her cheek and smiled at her and it’s almost enough to imagine the flutter of her heart. The pounding of that muscle in her chest. But there is none. There was none to calm Henry down with its steady beat when she got him and there is none now to calm _her_ down. 

It’s like drowning, only worse.

There is no water to surface, no horizon to find. 

Just. 

Emptiness. 

* 

“I need a favor.” The only one who remembers and has no power in this town. 

Jefferson laughs. And glares. And hates her. “I don’t think so.” He leans against the door frame, his brilliant blue eyes examining every inch of her face. 

“The hat. I just need the hat.”

“Funny. I don’t _have_ a working hat.” He laughs again and yes, this is how madness looks like. She tries to remember it the next time she feels like losing it. “Or, let me rephrase that. There is no magic to make it work.” 

But for now she just clears her throat, seemingly ignoring his words. “Everyone will benefit from it.” He has to see only the desperation. She already knows what she wanted to find out. Now, it’s just about acting. 

“Oh, now you are selfless and brave to do the right thing? Go figure, it’s rather late for that, your Majesty, wouldn’t you agree?” he snarls at her and there is no mercy, because madness eats you out, it destroys compassion and empathy and love and leaves a path of destruction behind, surrounding your soul with it. And she has done that to him. She, who should’ve known better. 

But she didn’t. 

Or, she pretended not to know better, not to feel better. 

So close to her heart, and she still doomed a father to exist—not live—without his daughter. 

Maybe she should’ve tried to get her heart back, too, but it wasn’t there, with the rest of her mother’s collected hearts. 

And there hadn’t been time for it, anyway. She had to save her father, not herself. She sighs. “If not for me, then for Henry, for Grace, for everyone in this town.” 

He is silent for a heartbeat or two. She doesn’t exactly know, there is no heartbeat within her to measure it. “What is your agenda here? Why trying to emotionally blackmail me, when I don’t have anything left to lose? My daughter doesn’t remember me and on some days I have to write her name down, several times, just to make sure that I won’t forget _her_ eventually!” He comes closer and she hates it, because he towers over her and he smells like Wonderland after all these years and it’s nauseating. “Leave my house, Regina. And don’t come back. I’ll kill you.” 

“What stops you now? Oh, right. _Henry_.” But it’s not true anymore. 

Because, Emma Swan. 

He knows it, too. He smiles. “I heard there is a new mother for him. A better one, perhaps?” It’s cruel taunting and he flashes a warning smile before turning around and gripping the door to his big mansion. “The Savior, how ironic. It fills me with joy, you know? One day, you have to pay. One day, you _will_ pay. And I’ll see to that day, trust me, I do.” 

He has no idea. She already pays a price above her budget. 

You can’t pretend to feel love. 

She leaves. 

* 

Emma is half asleep when she pounds against the door. It’s close to midnight. (And where is Mary Margaret? For Christ’s sake, _how is that even possible_. The curse was supposed to make them forget, to separate them. Instead, _they found each other again_. Quick, a bucket, she has to throw up any second now.) 

“Regina?”

“We need to talk.” 

“Kinda late. Like, I was already—” 

“It’s … a pressing matter that cannot wait.” 

“You’ll get them tomorrow.” 

She looks irritated at the adorably sleepy face of Emma Swan. (How would it look like, how would it feel like to wake up next to her? Wrong question.) “What?” 

Emma wears a pajama, a gray top and black shorts and she crosses her arms in front of chest as if to show off with her well-defined biceps. _Damn you, Emma Swan_. It’s distracting her, among other things. “The files. You know, I was busy with chasing Pongo today, and then Ruby paid me a visit and then you came to the station and, uh, yeah … you know.” She actually blushes. The kiss at the station. 

She wants to stop the film, to pause it until she has her heart back and get back to exact this moment, but she can’t and she can’t get it back without Emma’s help. The universe has a weird sense of humor. “I am not here because of the files,” she says with a condescending, bored tone that suggests that the mere idea of that to be the reason for her late visit is absolute and utter stupidity. It is, but she won’t say it out loud. Not yet, not right now. “It’s something else.” 

“Henry?” 

She sighs. “Emma—” 

“Your car?” 

“What—no. Can I just come in?” 

“Yes, sure, come in.” She hastily opens the door. Turns more lights on. Closes the door behind her. Shuffles into the kitchen, rubbing some sleep out of her eyes. “Coffee, tea? Or something stronger?” 

“No, thank you.” 

She shrugs. It shouldn’t make her feel so desperate, but it does. She could cry. It costs every ounce of willpower to swallow the tears. She’s a broken mess and maybe she shouldn’t doom Emma Swan to something alike, shouldn’t tell her the truth and shatter the illusions of normalcy. Because living a lie? Sometimes that’s the less painful way. 

But she’s selfish. Always was. Always will be. She sighs. 

Emma tilts her head. “Wow. This looks serious.” She takes the mug of coffee with her and sits down next to her, enough space between them to not imply a possible next round of making out. “Should I guess what this is about or …?” 

“It’s not the kiss.” 

The relief on Emma’s face warms the space where the heart should be and floods her whole system, but her body can’t really digest what it is. It should be enough, but it isn’t. It never is. Regina is greedy, always was, greedy for sweets, greedy for books, greedy for riding lessons, greedy for happiness with stable boys and greedy for happy endings that don’t belong to her. “Henry is telling the truth.”

“That Ruby is having a crush on Whale? The kid’s just told me this today. Geez, who would’ve guessed.” 

 _This fucking idiot_. Sometimes the old rage and fury from the apple tree incident returns and then it aches in her fingertips to simply choke some senses back into Emma’s stubborn head. She takes a deep, calming breath. “No, not _that_. And please, stop spreading gossip around the town. You’re the sheriff.”

“Understood, Madam Mayor. Was there something else I can do for you?” Emma rolls with her eyes, but there is an amused, playful glint in her green eyes. Something that annoyed her some weeks ago, but also filled her with life and it shouldn’t be like this, she shouldn’t like this back and forth between them, but oh god, she does. Still, the wink she just receives makes her frown and wonder if she isn’t beyond saving yet. _Out of all people it has to be—_  

Maybe kissing some senses back into Emma’s stubborn head would be a better option? 

 

 

  * 

No, it isn’t. 

But it doesn’t hurt either. 

*

“Wait, that’s not why I’m here,” she pants and puts a hand on Emma’s chest, feeling the strong, warm heartbeat underneath the thin fabric. It distracts her and she can _feel_ Emma’s smile, because the blonde actually believes it’s about what’s on the outside of her chest, and not inside of it that caught Regina’s attention. 

Idiot.

“See something you—” 

“Don’t even finish that sentence. You need to listen.” 

“Okay.” 

“I …” And then all the smart and important words are lost on her. She was once a powerful sorceress, feared in the realm she cursed and known under the title _Evil Queen_. There is nothing left of that woman. 

That’s good.

And bad at the same time.

She sighs, breathes and wishes the world to stop. 

“Seriously, this is freaking me out,” Emma whispers and takes her face in her warm, soft hands. Again. “Is it because you’re stuck in a hate-not-hate-thing, or …” She avoids the word _love_ with a fierceness that is fitting for a savior. “Or is it, because you’re stuck in it with me?” she continues with a small, so small voice. The voice of an abandoned child. The voice of trust issues. The voice of pain and misery from the past. 

Regina can’t stop kissing her. 

It’s a problem. 

It needs to stop. 

(What if Mary Margaret decided to come back home right in this moment? A part of her wants to cackle, because the mere idea of _Snow White_ , not the boring schoolteacher, finding both of them on her couch, while sharing a kiss that can’t be considered as PG-13 rated anymore is _priceless_.) 

“Emma,” she murmurs against the lips, the sweet soft lips and forgets what she wanted to say, because these lips have other ideas than staying still. 

But no. “Emma, please. Listen.” She leans her forehead against Emma’s. “Henry is right. About the curse. About me. About this town. About your parents. About you. About everything. He is telling the truth and I am telling the lies. I am a liar, Emma Swan and the first time I met you I didn’t … I couldn’t quite place you. I’ve taken a potion to forget of your existence and it worked for ten years. And then you had to stroll into my town and shatter everything, destroying what I learned to accept as my life, along with my apple tree and _me_.” She can feel Emma’s confusion and her try to pull away, but she doesn’t let her. This is important. The most important part. “I don’t have a heart. I didn’t need it. Or at least, I was told that I don’t need it. But that person—I pity her, because how can you possibly decide to not need something like this? To not want to feel this, or to not feel at all?” She lifts her head then, letting Emma Swan finally go. 

She gets up. Damn the silent lazy rain tears and damn her mother. Both caused by the same thing. She has some hearts left in the vault, she doesn’t even remember to whom they all belong anymore. But maybe one will fit into her chest? 

“Why would you tell me something like … Are you …? How can you … not have a …?”

“Magic,” she says and her shoulders slump down in defeat and her Louboutins decided to give her a hard time _right now_ and she wants to have a hot bath and later on watch Henry sleep and ignore the yawning emptiness in her chest and her desperate plan to fill it again and trying to forget Emma Swan, because this was never meant to be and she’s so _stupid, stupid, stupid_. It’s getting harder the more she wants to forget her, to ignore her, to pretend that she doesn’t long to feel something for her. “It didn’t happen here,” she adds softly as if it’s actually a useful information for Emma Swan.

“I fell in love with a psychopath? Great.” Emma looks defeated and tired. “Listen, maybe we should … god, I don’t know, I never had to deal with—”

“I am not delusional. And if you help me to steal the Mad Hatter's hat I will prove it to you.”

And Emma laughs. 

And then she sobs and shakes her head and maybe she’s just tired or maybe, maybe this little bits of truth are already taking its toll on her. She doesn’t have to accept it. Her subconscious has to know, though. There are too many weird things going on in this town. And so, it’s going to happen anyway. She’s going to find out the truth and then she’ll break the curse, so why not speed things up? Why not help her to do so? It is Emma’s task, Emma’s duty to decide what kind of punishment an evil queen deserves, that lies in the face of beautiful and way too kind, yet damaged blondes in red leather jackets and yellow cars.

And then Emma kisses her again, because this is like breathing, though it makes breathing quite hard, but they can’t stop, can’t, can’t, can’t. _Won’t_. 

 _I fell in love with a psychopath_. 

There are worse love admissions, Regina concludes, before she nibbles at Emma’s lower lip, licks at it and lets her tongue dart tentatively forward. 

They only stop, because _oxygen_.

“The Mad Hatter?”

“I’ll leave you alone for the rest of your life if it doesn’t work.” But it _has_ to work, her life depends on this and even if it doesn’t, she already told Emma that she is a liar. She really is. Even this, this pretending is better than nothing at all. Better than anything—besides Henry, but isn’t he somehow a part of Emma?—that has happened in the last 28 years. 

Emma touches the corners of her mouth with her thumbs. And sighs again. And closes her eyes in acceptance of what seems to her to be sheer lunacy. “Fine. I’ll pretend for one hour that you’re right, okay? I pretend to believe you that my parents are right now cheating on god knows who Kathryn is supposed to be in this whole mess of—”

“King Midas’ daughter, Princess Abigail,” Regina clarifies in a whisper, and receiving promptly the deserved glare from Emma for the interruption.

“I pretend to believe all this crap and we’ll go to the oh so called Mad Hatter to get his stupid hat to do some voodoo-fuck-me-whatnot. Deal?” The colorful language shouldn’t be so appealing.

Regina shouldn’t be thinking about sex and how much she looks forward to it to have it with Emma Swan, once she has her heart back. Somebody help her. “Deal.” She even smiles. 

They even shake their hands.

But they still seal it with a kiss. For good measure, it seems. “Okay, let me get dressed.” 

Regina wonders how this _thing_ will feel with a heart.


	2. Climax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know what to tell you. this chapter just had its own ideas, that's why the length got so out of hand. my apologies. still not really sure if anything in this chapter makes sense.

Five minutes later. 

Emma emerges out of her room, dressed in black tight jeans (does this woman own any other kind of jeans?), a dark gray hoodie and black leather gloves. “I’m ready to go,” she says and eyes Regina’s clothes for what seems to be the first time this evening. She wears her clothes from work, a snug black robe and her damn Louboutins that are still killing her. 

“Well, I am not. Not yet,” she hears herself admitting and yes, she really needs different shoes. Everything better than the pair that currently inflict pain and misery upon her vulnerable feet. “So we have to stop at my house. And I need to tell Henry about our trip. He needs to stay somewhere while we’re gone.” 

“Regina, it’s almost 1 a.m.” 

“And?” 

“I doubt, you’ll find a babysitter at this hour. Even if the town is cursed and does everything to your liking,” she winks and chuckles and looks so nervous that she thinks about hugging Emma Swan. If she feels like this _without_ a heart, what will happen once she has one? 

Can you die from too much emotion? 

Hopefully not. 

No, certainly not. Snow White seemed to be fine all these years feeling too much and too intense which made her oblivious to the rest of the world. That spoiled little brat.

“I have friends,” she points out. 

Now Emma gives her a long judging look. “And who’s that? Your slave Sidney doesn’t count.” She even lifts her index finger. It’s hilarious. 

“I was thinking about Kathryn. Since your …” she swallows the words _your parents_ , because it’s way too soon for that, too soon. “Since your room mate decided to have some fun with a married man, we developed something like … a friendship?” Well, another lie this night.

“Henry can stay on his own, though. Once we tell him what … you plan to do, he’s not going to shut up about it and he’s going to drive everybody insane. Archie needs his sleep, too.” Emma’s voice is soft and too close and she wants to bring the distance back, the hatred that never was real hatred, but she can’t and she won’t and this is her downfall, in one way or another. Her thoughts drift away. “One hour, that’s like a blink with the eye, you know? I was by myself all the time and I turned out fine,” Emma tries to convince her, but the different angle she uses to approach this topic makes things worse, if Regina is honest. 

Emma was in prison. 

Emma is damaged. 

Emma has trust issues. 

Emma is currently in love with an evil queen. 

Regina sighs. There is no realm in which this would be considered as _t_ _o have turned out fine_. 

Emma clears her throat. She knows it, too. “Let’s go,” she mumbles and takes her keys, her black leather jacket, her boots and her hand in hers and everything is good. Almost. 

* 

“Put the seat belt on, dear.” 

“Why? It’s a five minute drive. Through the deserted streets of a sleepy town in Maine.” 

“Miss Swan, don’t test my patience,” she groans and glares at her. “The seat belt.” 

Emma rolls with her eyes. “Back to the titles, hm?” 

“Just put that damn seat belt on, Emma!” 

Emma giggles. 

* 

“So,” Emma starts and looks out of the window. The radio is turned off, because she needs time to think. And music from the 80s tends to destroy your brain cells at an early hour like this. So, silence and awkwardness it is. Except that Emma is still holding her free hand and her gloved fingers rub circles across the skin. 

“Yes?” 

“What are we going to tell him?” 

Some months ago that _we_ would have been enough to set an entire kingdom on fire. Tonight it triggers a small, invisible smile on her lips. “The truth. No more lies.” At least not in that regard and not to Henry. He deserves to get a confirmation that he’s right and that he isn’t crazy. God, she made her own son feel like losing his mind. And now, now that she actually knows how that feels like she wants to turn back time and do things differently. Better. 

“Okay.” 

“What I told you, perhaps.” 

“Also the hat-stuff?” It is remarkable that Emma pretends to believe her, just like she said she would and even if there is still the doubt in her gaze, she arches her brows and leans a bit forward, curiosity softening her features. “The whole ‘let’s steal a magical hat?’ That too?” 

“He knows much, but not everything. He says I don’t love him and that’s not true, not really, but in a sense … it sadly is,” she whispers and sets the blinker, because yes, they’re the only one on the streets but she’s still the mayor and Emma is the sheriff and so she uses the blinker. Emma bites her lower lip, a remark about that blinker surely bubbling up in her throat. 

Instead, she decides to focus back at the things Regina just mentioned. “Yeah, you’ve said something about a lost heart … is it a metaphor for a beloved person that died?” Emma seems nervous and unsettled again. 

Death as a topic tends to add that to conversations. 

“No. Yes. It’s complicated.” 

“We have three minutes left.” 

“I don’t have a heart, it’s like that, just like I said it. I don’t have a heart. Everything feels the same like with a heart, except it doesn’t, because I feel numb and lost and as if something is … missing or blocking my emotions.” 

“Jesus.” 

“My mother thought it to be the only way to ensure that I’d be a powerful, strong willed queen, once I married the king. Snow’s father.” She refuses stubbornly to say _your grandfather_. He’s long dead, anyway. 

Emma shifts on the seat. Tugging at the seat belt. Taking a deep breath. “Snow White, the one who’s supposed to be my mom if Henry’s right?” 

“She is. Only her hair and personality is missing, but Mary Margaret is Snow White.” She also refuses to say _your mother_. 

“If, and I am still convinced that this is a dream—not because we made out on her couch in the middle of the night—but if you’re telling me the truth and she’s really my mom … then I don’t want to break the curse.” She blushes. Crimson red. 

She looks at her confused, worried and perplexed. “What?” 

“We had some talks when we couldn’t sleep, alright,” she murmurs ashamed and looks out of the window again. The hand stopped rubbing soothing circles on her skin, but is gripping it now tightly. Not in a hurtful way, but. She can feel Emma’s distress like her own because of that. 

She huffs. “I don’t even want to know.”

“You already do,” Emma blurts out softly and presses right afterwards her lips together to a thin line of regret. “The thing is … she’s going to remember then, you know?”

“That’s the goal in the long run, yes. I am aware of that. They all will.” It doesn’t hurt so much, she realizes. To let go of what she considered to be her happy ending. The curse is as much a curse to her than to the rest of the townsfolk—maybe even worse, because she remembers _everything_. Sometimes she wants to forget, too.

But not anymore. There is a gloved hand and Emma’s curious look and her son sleeping in the big white mansion that want her to have _more_ than this, to have something new instead of forgetting and ripping out the last remaining piece of her truest self, that might still be somewhere deep within the emptiness and darkness of her soul. “Why is her remembering everything a bad thing?”

“I … might’ve talked with her about … stuff.” 

“You talked with her about me,” she says and turns the engine off. There is no judgment in her voice, because Mary Margaret is a chatty woman and probably a good listener and always trying to help others. (Helping her, for the record, when Henry wouldn’t stop crying. She hates this fact, but it’s there. Staring at her and yet, it changes _not a thing_.) 

Emma looks at their joined hands. “Yes,” she whispers, shudders and looks up again. “She told me that I lost my mind, but in the _I am your friend, I’ll have your back even if you do something stupid_ way. But once she gets her memories back—” She frowns. “If there are memories to get back, then she’ll know. As my mother. And I am not sure … like, Henry gave me that book. You guys have some anger management problems.” 

Regina snorts. “That’s one way of putting it,” she remarks and gets out of the car. The night air is crisp and fresh and the white mist of her exhaled breath clouds for a second her vision. Emma’s gaze never leaves her face after she left the car shortly after her. “She’ll only remember if I am right and we find a way to break the curse.” 

Life is a funny thing. This is her, trying to give Emma Swan some comfort. 

Her mother would be disgusted. 

But so was she by so many things her mother had done to her, to others, to everyone. She has to think of her father and then to the boy who’s named after him. The white mansion lies dark and lifeless before them. Henry is still asleep.

* 

“Do you … want to wake him up?” She is suddenly very self-conscious. This is not how she planned things to go. She thought she has to return alone to the mansion. Then again, this curse wasn’t created to give a home to one non-cursed boy, who grows up and changes while the rest remains frozen in time.

That imp never delivered what he’d promised. Never. 

Emma looks taken aback. “Really?” There is childish, but sincere joy in her eyes. She gives Regina a peck and races upstairs, just like Henry. 

She closes her eyes. _No running through the house_. It really itches in the tip of her tongue, but she thinks better of it and slips out of her shoes. 

 _Sweet Jesus_ , what a relief. 

* 

“You told her everything?” Henry’s voice is a few octaves too high and there is still some sleep left, but his eyes are wide awake. His taking two stairs at once. “Why … did you do that? This is not how’s supposed to go!” 

“The book doesn’t know everything, Henry.” 

“But you’re the Evil Queen! Emma has to defeat you!” 

 _She already has, my little prince_. “Sometimes a storybook is just that—a book. Written by the ones who claim to be the victories, the good side. But there are things, details that the book doesn’t know. Can’t know.” She bends down to be on one eye level with him. Emma is right behind him, looking between them with a somewhat lost expression on her face. “I need you to stay at home. Don’t open anyone the door. If it weren’t for the late hour or if it weren’t so dangerous, I would—” She stops. Would she? Would she really take Henry to Wonderland if her mother weren’t there a cruel, heart-collection queen? She doubts it. Even without her mother the place has little to offer, at least not for a child that doesn’t plan to become a hopeless drug addict or to smoke together with the talking caterpillar. 

Henry’s eyes soften, as soft as a child’s gaze can get. “’S okay,” he reassures her, hugging her. The last genuine hug is something that happened some time ago. She stopped to count the weeks. It’s unhealthy to cling to lost things like that. 

But the whole point is that not everything is lost. It’s just new. Different. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

“I am hugging the Evil Queen,” he suddenly realizes and draws back a little. 

She touches his cheek, Emma sniffles. “I am sorry, Henry. For everything. You were right and I was wrong.” 

“I … oh.” He’s clearly taken aback by that. Just like his mother some minutes ago. So many surprises for the young boy. He swallows and takes a deep breath before smiling at her. “So, you are going to help Emma to break the curse, right?” 

She can’t tell him what exactly is going on between her and Emma. She decides that a white lie doesn’t hurt. “There is something we need to get back and then, hopefully, she can break my curse.” _My curse_. These words, these two little words are so loaded. She means so much more, than just the curse, that made the rest of the town forget their identities, that dragged them to the Land Without Magic. “Are you okay with staying here?” 

He nods and an adventurous smile sneaks upon his lips. “I’ll stay in your study. Maybe read some Harry Potter again.” 

“Since Emma and I will be gone, call … call Mary Margaret in case of any emergencies. Do you understand me?” 

“You mean Snow White,” he points out and Emma looks suddenly very pale as if she’s about to pass out, she mutters something to herself, too. 

She clears her throat, looking back at her son. “Yes, dear.” There is a bitter edge to her voice, one that her son is too young to hear, but Emma does. Emma, attentive and careful Emma, who managed to get under her skin in matters of _days_. “Now, go and grab a blanket when you’re there. And don’t try to light the fire place, okay?” 

“Yes, mom.” 

“I can hear the eye roll in your voice,” she says and of course she does. This is the DNA copy of Emma right there. 

Henry smirks. “So, what’s your plan?” 

* 

Emma is sitting on the stairs, holding her head. They didn’t leave the hallway and it is rather cold here. Her bare feet, only covered by her black tights, are frozen by now. 

Henry seems not to notice the cold or the state of Emma. He is focused and thinking about what she’s told him. The shortened form. She left the most cruel details out. Things that Henry never has to find out. “Is that why you are … why you became the Evil Queen?” He tilts his head the same way his mother does. Yes, Emma is his mother. No more running. 

“Yes and no.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“I doubt that I wouldn’t have hated Snow if I were allowed to keep my heart after what happened to—” She can’t say his name. So she only thinks it and it’s enough to make her flinch. 

Henry gazes at her, a warmth in his look and tired features she’s missed so many months. Even months before Emma Swan happened, before she invaded the town and ultimately her life. “You should bring the hat here. I’ll protect it.” 

“Absolutely not. I will not risk your safety in case the Mad Hatter decides to get his hat back by force.” 

“But if he destroys the hat while you’re gone, then …!” He gulps and tries to tone the panic in his voice down. 

Too late. She wants to say something but that’s when Emma gets to her feet. “We will come back. No way in hell I will stay in Wonderland. If it’s just a bit like the Disney version … hell, I’m gonna stay there like five minutes. Not a minute more.” 

“I am not sure we’re going to find my heart this fast, dear,” she warns her softly and now it’s her turn to tone certain things in her voice down, because heart or no heart, this is all so new and there is no need to drag Henry into it. How lucky they are that it is almost half past one in the morning. Her son yawns and doesn’t pay much attention to her voice. “Very well,” she gives in. “We will bring the hat here. But we’ll make sure no one can enter the house, okay?” She thinks about barricades and spells that—if magic were an option in a land without magic—could protect her son.

Their son. 

“Yep, that’s good.” 

They even have the same crooked smiles.

*

“Whoa, that’s a fucking huge mansion. I mean, no offense your house is also big and, you know, obviously upper class, but this is just. Wow.” Emma’s mouth is open and she gapes at Jefferson’s house like she’s never seen one before. 

“It’s too big for one person,” she manages to say. She’s wearing a dark coat, almost the same leather gloves like Emma and flat boots. She has not the patience—or pain tolerance—left to walk on heels. And they are on a quest. As much as she is still sometimes a regal queen, even she sees that there is no use in wearing high heels while floundering through Wonderland. 

“Oh. What happened? Ah, wait, the curse took his wife?” Emma herself hasn’t decided if she’s serious or not. 

“His daughter, actually. She’s alive, but she doesn’t remember him. He had a wife, though. However, I don’t exactly know what happened to his wife. Never had the pleasure to meet her,” she shrugs with her shoulders and gives Emma a short look. It’s still weird to talk with her about this, partly because Emma decided to simply go with it and sometimes she looks like she wants to run or to laugh until tears of laughter are streaming down her pale cheeks. They are hiding behind trees, gazing at the dark manor of the Mad Hatter. Almost dark. There is one window illuminated, in the first floor. “Don’t pity him too much,” she adds. 

“He’s mad, I get it.” Emma shivers.

“Are you cold?”

“I hope it’s warmer in Wonderland.” 

“It is. Sickly humid, the air smells too sweet and it makes your skin feel sticky.” 

Emma blinks. “This shit is real, isn’t it?” 

She doesn’t really know what to do. There is always space between them since they climbed out of the car in front of the white mayoral mansion. “I wish you weren’t forced into this,” she murmurs darkly and she makes a mental note to pay that imp a visit once they come back.

Emma crosses her arms. “You didn’t force me into anything, alright? You were honest and you gave me a choice, which didn’t happen often in my life, so thanks for that.” There is bitterness in Emma’s tone and she isn’t sure if it is directed to her or not. She lied to her, after all. That’s a reason to be mad about. 

“It might look like that, but you didn’t get to choose your fate. Your parents did. They doomed you to be the Savior. Not for selfish purposes, not only,” she says earnestly, because Emma has to understand. This is a fatal flaw of their world, of magic, of deals and owning favors. “It’s my fault, actually.” 

Emma looks lost again. And then she stifles a yawn. “I don’t want to think too much about what the book told me happened 28 years ago, okay? _You_ gave me the truth and a choice, real or not. That’s what I choose to focus on, okay?” She gives her a crooked, tired smile.

Isn’t it sad that these two quite worthless things one would say are so highly valued by the Savior?

* 

“What the hell? Do you have a key for everything in this town?”

“Yes. I could rob the bank if I had the need to do so.” 

Emma huffs. “Peachy.” 

“Quiet now. Do you have the flash light?” she whispers in the dark when they enter one after another the basement of the manor. 

“Yeah, see?” She turns it on. 

And then her hand with the flash light slowly sinks and she stares at hundreds and hundreds of hats. “Please tell me I inhaled in his garden some mushrooms and now I am totally high,” she hisses with horror in her voice. 

“I am afraid not.” 

Together they gaze at the hundreds and hundreds of different hats. 

“Oh boy,” Emma whispers crestfallen. “This is going to be a long night.” 

*

Emma takes a deep breath. “Do you at least know how it looks like? Color? Size? Anything?”

“No, but it’s not here. The basement is the closet and these hats are his skeletons he tries to hide,” she replies with confidence in her voice. She is sure of that. 

“Did you just used a metaphor to explain...” 

“Come along. We need to get to the room where he stores his favorite hats. One of them has to be _the_ hat.” 

“A prayer circle that you’re right,” is the only comment Emma makes. She still can’t tear her gaze away from the hats.

*

They are standing in the hallway, trying to tell where Jefferson is currently located. The main floor lies completely dark and silent in front of them, the only thing she can hear are their breaths and Emma’s heart beat. “Maybe I should take the lead?” Emma is so close behind her that she can feel her tingling breath on her neck. 

It makes concentrating unnecessarily more difficult. “Why?” 

“I don’t want you to get…” Her voice fades out. 

She turns around, meeting Emma’s dark and worried gaze. “Don’t worry,” she whispers, because even though there is something between them and even though her hopelessly optimistic part has already its hopes up that maybe the fuss over True Love’s kiss could become reality in her case her, Emma shouldn’t be worried about her. 

The Savior deserves so much better than her. 

But Emma seems to think otherwise which underlines somehow only the point of her tiny optimistic part that’s left within her. Emma shakes her head. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asks softly, not really wanting to hear the answer. 

No, she really doesn’t. 

She sighs and presses herself against the wall to hint at Emma to take the lead. 

* 

Emma has one impressive right hook. Jefferson lies knocked out on the floor, the shreds of his glass table splayed around him on the hardwood floor. It looks tragically beautiful. Or no, she corrects herself, she is just glad that Emma won this fight. 

Emma’s nose is bleeding. 

Emma’s lip is bruised and bleeding, too. 

And yet, the Savior looks so ridiculously satisfied about herself. “I don’t know about how you deal with the bad guys over _there_ , but this is how we deal with ’em here.” There is a lot of proud in her nasal voice.

“We usually executed them,” she supplies not at all helpfully, while she tries not to step on the glass. 

Emma’s smile vanishes as quickly as it appeared. “Holy shit.”

“Welcome to the Enchanted Forest, dear.” Her voice is dripping with dark, bitter sarcasm. “Are you okay?” The nose bleeding not only looks horrific, it surely has to hurt, too.

Emma wipes away the blood with the back of her hand. Like a real princess. “Yeah, I’m good. So, should I handcuff him?” She holds a pair of silver handcuffs up, as if she never doubted to need them. Clever savior. Stupid hatter. 

“Yes, please do. Meanwhile, I try to find the right hat.” 

* 

“So, what’s the worst that can happen over … there?” Emma handcuffed Jefferson to the heater and is now standing next to her and looking at the hat in her hand. 

“Are you ready to meet my mother, dear?” She only briefly mentioned her mother while she tried to explain to Henry her plan as best as she could. Well, she only mentioned “Wonderland” and “Queen of Hearts”, which is the same thing, basically. For her, anyway. She just wants to prevent and protect Henry from nightmares. There’s enough going on in his young life. 

Emma gives her a strange look. “Ya know, it’s kinda early for the whole mother-in-law stuff at this stage of our...whatever.” 

She glowers at her, because _that idiot_. 

Emma pauses and processes and sighs, realization shining in her eyes. She looks down at the hat again, almost ashamed. “Your mother is the worst that can happen to us, right?” 

“I am all out of cookies, Miss Swan, but yes, that would be correct.”

Now it’s Emma who glowers at her.

And never has it been done with more fondness and adoration. 

* 

The whole ‘get-the-hat-and-come-back’ business took them twenty minutes. Henry is asleep in the study, the Harry Potter book lies open on his stomach. At least he’s under the blanket. She smiles at that.

She decides to write a short note, just to make sure he won’t worry too much about them.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure that Henry stays calm when he wakes up. We don’t know for sure how long it will take.”

“Good thing tomorrow is no school, huh?”

“Yes, I’d be worried if Mary Margaret decided to stay up with David doing god only knows what and then going to school the next day, pretending to be a role model for all those kids.” There is darkness and hatred in her voice, but Emma only watches her hand, writing the words down on a piece of paper.

“That was an intense answer, Madam Mayor.”

“If the curse breaks, remember that your mother and I hate each other. With all we have,” she adds to underline the severeness in this situation. It’s more than a situation actually. It’s a part of their lives. 

Emma chuckles nervously. This woman has no idea what exactly that is supposed to mean, according to her clenched fist. “When will the curse break?” 

“First things first.” She puts the pen down. “We need to get the hat to work.” 

* 

She could tell her about her own speculations of how to break the curse. The book demands a final fight between Good and Evil. But then again, it’s just a book. 

And usually she doesn’t get what she wants, so why tell Emma about that?

*

Turns out that Emma has magic. She sacrificed the ring Daniel gave her to extract the magic that still pulsed in it (“Wow, what are you—oh, okay. Is that…magic? Whoa. _Why is it_ purple?”) but it wasn’t enough. Until Emma touched her arm. 

To comfort her?

To make her support known?

She will never truly know, but it worked. Her touch made the hat work.

And now they’re not longer in Storybrooke.

*

“This night is getting stranger and stranger. Who the fuck thought it to be clever to put so many doors into that hat?”

She is surprised how little Emma is freaking out. Sure, she is pale and fidgety and her voice is filled with distress and unease. However, Emma’s doubt doesn’t exist anymore; can’t exist anymore. Magic is real and a part of her, as it seems. They just entered a portal via the hat of the Mad Hatter.

She sighs. “Its task is to bring people to various worlds. The Mad Hatter was known for bringing items from different worlds to the Enchanted Forest. He was a portal jumper, if you will.”

“This is getting really complicated.”

She looks at her and takes her hand, guiding her towards the right door. “It is quite sad actually, how little our stories have in common with the simple fairy tales your world uses as bedtime stories.” She touches the door lightly, frowning

“How do we know about your stories anyway?” Emma mutters to herself and tilts her head, watching the door open. 

They enter Wonderland. It smells as sickly sweet and humid as ever. The colors are too bright, too chaotic, the plants seem to move, albeit the breeze is missing. Emma gulps. And squeezes her hand and doesn’t let go. “What the hell.”

“Welcome to Wonderland, Emma,” she whispers and takes a deep breath. Now comes the hard part. “Let’s go, shall we?”

Emma looks a lot like a frightened child and she wonders briefly if this is how the young Emma Swan looked like. It breaks her not-yet-back-in-her-chest heart. But she can feel it. It’s here. Waiting for her. _Calling_ for her. “Yeah, right. The heart. How do we find it? With…magic?” 

“No. She’ll know then that we’re here. My mother will probably know about us being here even if we don’t use magic.” 

“Why am I sensing that this will end badly?” 

She looks away. Too many risks at once, she thinks. But out loud she says: “She has—we have our differences. We have no time to go into details now.”

“But you want…to tell me about them? Some day?”Emma sounds so surprised at that. They walk next to each other on the uneven path. It’s the right direction. She simply has to follow that tugging feeling in her chest that becomes stronger with every step. “About the differences, I mean.”

“I am not sure if you are ready for that.”

She chuckles softly. “You sound like Henry.” 

It’s moments like this that make her feel like she has finally found her family. One year ago it was just her and Henry and now it is Emma, too. 

She smiles a watery smile, looking straight ahead into the greeting darkness. For once she’s not afraid to be here. 

* 

Her mother is too smart. Or too cruel, in that matter. Wonderland shifts and shivers under the iron fist of her mother’s strong willed reign. She expected much, but not this. Last time she was here things were different. 

The colors fade into greyish shades once the big, dark castle comes into view. They don’t talk anymore, they simply walk and try to ignore their exhaustion. It is late, after all. She ignores the guilt burning in her chest like a fire. She isn’t used to that, but obviously getting closer to the heart means also getting closer to all the hidden emotions in it. 

She should be happy about that fact.

But it scares her. Fear is still a part of her, because it is strongly connected to her instincts, to her self-preservative drive. It can exist and poison her bloodstream and thoughts without the guidance of a heart. 

“I think they know that we’re here,” Emma whispers next to her, her hand touching the crook of her arm. It’s something she came to accept as the spot Emma always touches when it is about the talking and about getting her attention and not about the touching itself. She likes it. God help her but she likes it very much. “Someone…or something—for all I know the mushrooms could start talking to us—is following us.”

“You can stay here and wait,” she offers her and a part desperately wishes Emma’s answer to be a simple yet honest “okay”. Hiding in the bushes of Wonderland isn’t the bravest thing one could do, but it’s the safest. Then again, life is never easy or safe, even not on a quest with a savior. 

Emma shakes her head. “I’d rather go with you. I promised to help you, and I keep my promises.” 

“Like the one that you’re going to leave?” 

There is a loaded, tense pause between them, a space in time and place. “Some promises are meant to be broken,” Emma finally breathes out, her shoulders still bend forward, her brows furrowed. “Do you regret that we ended up where we are now?” It’s obvious that Emma isn’t talking about their current location. 

“Never.”

She leans in then, ignoring the dried blood underneath Emma’s nose, not hearing the footsteps of the guards behind them. Emma is too busy with staring at her lips and when they look up it’s already too late.

“Capture them and bring them to the Queen!”

*

“You foolish girl.” The words hurt like a backhanded slap in the face. She doesn’t look up, biting worried her lower lip.

_Emma. Emma. Emma._

She’s not here. Emma. She is not here and it makes her feel sick. She swallows hard and tries to concentrate on a certain spot in front her, while kneeing on the cold stone floor. Her mother towers over her, the mask not in place anymore. She hasn’t changed a bit. Why should she, the Dark Curse affected Wonderland as well. 

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Emma,” she repeats not for the first time and so it is no wonder that she sounds mildly annoyed. “Emma Swan.” She wishes she hadn’t lost her consciousness after the soldiers appeared behind them. The back of her head still hurts. 

“I don’t want to know her name, Regina,” her mother hisses impatiently and she feels the hand on her chin forcing her to look up, before her fingers actually touch her skin. “I demand to know for the last time: who is this rude, vulgar girl?” 

She kills the smile before it can blossom on her lips. “She’s … a friend of mine.” 

“You don’t have friends. You are a queen, Regina. We have allies, people who follow our orders and who try to please us. But they are not our _friends_.” Her mother is talented in making simple words sound so awfully distasteful that it is almost too easy to follow back into the old patterns and just surrender to her world views. But there is Henry. And Emma. And a heart. She knows better. 

She sighs. “I don’t know what to tell you, then,” she replies with as much honesty as she can muster.

Her mother laughs. “There is so much I want to know, my darling! Tell me about the life after you banned me to this colorful and yet monotonous realm.”

She’s her mother after all. And maybe, if she can soothe her hurt feelings, she muses, then she’ll have perhaps enough time to sneak out to get to Emma. She has to be somewhere her in this palace that is filled with grim looking guards. Some of them aren’t even human, but stone that came to live. Magic, her brain supplies. She wonders what Emma would think about these stone guards and that’s when she knows, really knows. 

Her mother is right. Emma is no friend. 

It shouldn’t be possible, but it is, it is. She loves her. With all her heart, even if it’s not where it should be. She still loves her. It’s easy to love Emma, even if she sometimes rambles like a child when she’s nervous or she tilts her head in confusion or eats too many of those bear claws instead of filing her paper work properly. She loves her. And maybe a fallen evil queen can play savior, too. 

She tells her mother the most important (and darkest) points of her life so far. She keeps quiet about Henry and the still breathing Snow White.

“I am proud of you,” her mother whisper quietly and touches her cheek one last time. It sounds a lot like the _I love you_ little Regina has always longed for, but there is a coldness to her eyes that makes it less real, less precious. Her mother doesn’t love, can’t love. She doesn’t understand why, why her mother is denied this emotion when she can enjoy the remnants of it. 

Maybe her mother hasn’t really loved anyone before she ripped her own heart out.

Her mother never told her why she did that to herself.

And now Regina is too old, too tired, too grown-up to ask a question her mother would dismiss as childish. It’s not but it doesn’t change her mother’s mind.

“Bring her to her _friend_.” The order echos in the large throne room. 

 _I am proud of you_. 

The steps of the stone soldiers are heavy and slow. 

“And don’t take that bracelet off!” 

 _I am proud of you_. 

In the end, love without a heart is no real love at all. 

*

It is dark and cold in the dungeon. At least the two guards free her from the handcuffs, only the bracelet stays closed around her wrist that disables her from using magic. Just like her mothers ordered them to do.

Emma is half awake when she comes closer. “There you are. At least they booked a room for two, right?”

Regina sits down next to her, a soft smile lifting the corners of her lips upwards.“Are you hurt?” She touches Emma’s cheek then, just to make sure that she is no illusion, no trick of her mother to break her down. But whatever her mother plans to do, this is not on her agenda. Emma is really here, warm, steady and looking at her with her green eyes. It’s too dark to see their color, but in her mind she can. In her mind, they are not trapped in a cold, cold dungeon.

“No. I am fine. Well, my nose and upper lip hurt a bit, but that’s Jefferson’s fault, not—yeah, don’t look at me like that. Just trying to be fair.”

“You don’t need to make excuses in her name. Your cheek feels a bit too warm, Emma.” It is astonishing how well they can read each other, even in the dark, not seeing the others eyes that more often than not shows their thoughts and emotions behind their faked smiles and even tones. 

Emma sighs. “Fine. I called her a bitch and then she ticked out. Happens. No big deal.” 

“Emma.” 

“And we still need to find your heart. God, how did you survive your childhood?” Emma mumbles, pinching at the bridge of her nose. 

She breathes out: “Like you survived yours, I suppose.”

They are both sides of the same coin.

*

“Did it … did it hurt?” 

She knows what Emma is asking her about, but she takes her time to find an answer. She is worried, of course. She thinks about Henry who is still in Storybrooke and she wonders if the Mad Hatter managed to free himself. They need to get out of here. She sighs softly. How much can it hurt to tell Emma Swan everything? She already knows more than anyone else from their old world.

“I don’t exactly know,” she answers truthfully. There was so much pain, so many different kinds of pain that she doesn’t remember. Not really.

Emma is holding her and it’s nice. She could fall asleep like that and this is something she worries about, too. Because this is so easy. Falling for Emma is as easy as loving Henry. It feels right, but it shouldn’t be like _that_. There are so many reasons that yell at her to stop, to push her away. But it is the same voice that dictated her whole life in the Enchanted Forest, it’s the heartless voice, not really _hers_. She is done with her past. At least, she wants to be. Emma’s hands find hers and squeeze lightly.

She clears her throat. “It did hurt, yes. But for so many different reasons.”

“When…did it happen?” Emma always hesitates when she’s asking these personal questions. Sometimes it is the little things that tell you so much about a person.

“You have to understand, my mother is a difficult, complicated woman. She thought what she was doing was right, was for the best. It took me years...a Dark Curse and the child of the Savior, actually, to understand her actions. To recognize and accept them as crimes. I never questioned them before, when I was the…” She takes a deep breath, it resounds in the dark, empty cell. “When I was the Evil Queen.”

“So the awful things that you’ve done…was it because you had no heart?”

“Oh no, it’s not as easy as that. I was corrupted by magic. By my own need for revenge. I wanted…so much. Because I was used to get so little, nothing most of the times. And Snow White? She was on the run and still managed to find her True Love, loyal friends and allies. She is not on the good side, Emma. She’s simply on the side of the victories.”

Emma kisses her cheek. And rests her chin against her temple. “I am sorry,” she murmurs into her hair and this feels nice. Sitting in front of Emma and enjoying her warmth. (But it’s not really about the warmth. They know it. They just decided not to speak about it.)

“You weren’t even born then,” she reminds her, because it feels silly to hear Emma’s apology. It’s not a pitiful apology, one she’d loathe, no. It’s an honest apology. One, that is said to comfort one, not to pity them.

She can feel Emma’s nod. “But…you still didn’t tell me when it happened. The heart thing, I mean. You don’t have to answer, though. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“18.”

“What?”

“I was 18.” 

“You can’t be serious.” 

“It happened after…” She can’t, she can’t, she can’t. It feels like choking. She breathes and breathes and still, she can’t say his name. “She killed him.” 

It’s enough, though. Emma understands, because even though she loves—yes, loves—to call Emma an idiot, she actually isn’t one, unlike her parents. “And the reason you hate my—Snow White so much is, because...?”

It’s pointless to run away from this, she decides.

And then she tells her everything. 

* 

“This was a horrible story.”

“I never said anything else.”

“I think, I need a moment.” 

“I understand.” 

“Jesus, my grandfather seriously was such a dick that he—” 

“We don’t have to talk about it. Let’s think of a way out.” 

* 

She is logic, Emma is emotion. Two opposites, circling around each other, attracted towards each other. Both sides. They are both sides. 

So, she is the voice of reason and thinking of a plan to bail out of their prison cell is a reasonable suggestion in this case. 

But Emma’s lips have—once again—better things to do. 

And she is too tired, too greedy, just _too much_ to say no.

Maybe kissing will bail them out. 

* 

Not really. 

But in the end it is indeed the solution for their troubles, because _magic_. 

* 

The bracelet burns uncomfortably. She pushes Emma a bit away and tries to catch her breath. “We need to...” She looks up and sees the golden shimmer in Emma’s eyes. It is golden and clearly visible in the dark. And then she wraps both her hands around each of Emma’s wrists and yes, there is really no bracelet. Nothing. Just Graham’s bootstrap. 

Of course.

It makes sense.

“Emma, you can use your magic.”

“Yeah?” Emma sounds breathless, but she is sure it is not because of her discovery. She blushes lightly and shakes her head to concentrate. Emma doesn’t know a thing about magic, that’s why she hasn’t noticed the bracelet around her wrist, or the missing one around her own. 

Things have to go quickly now. “I will guide you. I can’t use mine, for I am powerless with this wristband. But you don’t have one and therefore you can use your magic. It’ll be okay. I’ll help you, I tell you what to do.” She gets to her feet. 

“Don’t I need a wand?” It’s a joke, a silly little joke to cover her own fear and it is so much Emma. 

She laughs. “You are an idiot sometimes, do you know that?” 

An evil queen can’t get any closer to a genuine _I love you_ without a heart in her chest than that. 

*

It takes eleven attempts, two existential crises and a shouting match. The guards are not down here, of course not. Her mother is even more arrogant than she remembers. It is good for them. And once the door is open, they can breathe again.

“Okay, one more thing. You need to take this bracelet off. And you have to use your magic to do so. Wrap your fingers around it and—yes, just like that—and now, just pull and feel the energy around your fingertips. Yes, well done!” She gives Emma a bright smile and then she is hugged by the blonde who looks really tired now. She’s new to this whole magic business, after all.

“Anything else, Madam Mayor? Shall I conjure a glass of your finest apple cider out of thin air?” 

She laughs, again. Her cheek might start to hurt from so much laughing and smiling and _happiness._ “No, we’re good. We just need a torch”—she takes one unlit torch out of the wall holder and ignites it with her fingertips—“and a way out.” 

“Let me hold that torch, will ya?” Emma’s voice is nasal again and she realizes with horror that her nose is bleeding again. But that is normal, she supposes. Beginners in use of their magic suffer from side effects. And Emma is already a bit beaten up, so her body is not strong enough to deal with her wounds and the loss of so much energy due to the increased magic use in such a short time. “Okay, lead the way, Madam Mayor.” 

She doesn’t ask her why she uses the title again. 

Maybe it’s for comfort purposes. 

She smiles anyway and yes, her cheeks do hurt a little. 

* 

It is even colder in the vault, outside in the royal garden of the Queen of Hearts. The garden is well cared for, a neatly order of plants, bushes and sculptures with the face of her mother. Not only her arrogance has grown, it would seem. 

“She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” Emma whispers in her ear and she can only nod. 

Yes, she is. 

She takes Emma’s free hand. Her heart is merely some meters away from her. She can feel her own heartbeat, somewhere trapped in one of the numerous little drawers. Emma gulps. “That’s even worse than all the hats at the Mad Hatter’s house.” 

“Shh, not so loud. And it’s easier, this time.”

“Because I don’t have to fight against a maniac? Not yet, at least?” Emma certainly pictures her mother right now, if her curled lips and dark look are any indications for that.

“No,” she chuckles. Dear god, why is she chuckling? “No, it’s easier, because I can feel it.” She touches some of the square-shaped boxes and closes her eyes. The wooden surface of them is dusty and cold, but there is warmth, hidden behind them and so many, many hearts. Her mother truly deserves her title. 

After a few seconds she squints her eyes, opens one and exhales deeply, because there it is. Glowing in the dark, brighter than the torch and so pure and innocent. “She ripped out it after Daniel’s death,” she says, finally able to say his name now that she is holding her own beating heart in her hand. “It felt good for the first seconds. All the pain, the sorrow, the devastation—everything left my body, only the fear and hatred stayed. Hate doesn’t need a heart. It is stronger with one than without, though. So, to return to your question if I became the Evil Queen because there was no heart in my chest? I wish it’d be so easy to weasel my way out of the whole affair, but it isn’t. Everything I have done was in the name of revenge and hate and it doesn’t matter then if you have a heart or not. It’d have happened anyway, I guess.” 

Emma’s face is ridiculously beautiful in the warm yellow light of the torch. Even with the fresh blood in her face, even with the exhaustion in her green eyes and the scared, worried look in them. “You would’ve hated Snow White, with or without your heart,” she concludes and yes, that’s exactly what she was about to explain. 

She nods gratefully. “Indeed. Now, let’s go back to the door and leave this godforsaken realm.”

“Don’t you want it to put it back first?” They are leaving the vault already, Emma keeps easily her frantic pace. No guards in sight. Well, this is private ground, and with her magic and superiority in this realm, in this palace—why would her mother need guards in her garden?

Her mother has to know though that a heart is missing. Her mother has certainly put a spell on her cabinet with all the hearts in it.

“I can’t. Every emotion I felt shortly after Daniel’s death…they are still in there. If I put it back into my chest right now, then I have to feel everything, all at once and since I am not used to most emotions at all for such a long period of time”—is it even love she feels for Henry and Emma right now?—“well, it’d hinder us from leaving this place. We don’t have time for that.”

“Alright. It’s your heart, so...” Emma clears her throat. “Let’s go.” 

She nods, douses the torch and they walk out of the garden. 

That is the plan, at least. 

“Already leaving? I raised you better than that, Regina. At least have the decency to say goodbye to your mother.”

She almost drops her heart.

“Well, fuck,” Emma curses.

*

The slap is loud.

Emma curses again.

And she can’t move and do anything to protect the Savior.

* 

“Your taste in company hasn’t changed, my darling. Why do you always have to pick a peasant to befriend is beyond my reach.” Her mother waves dismissively with her hand, as if to scare off a fly. 

She grits her teeth. “Emma is a princess, actually,” she corrects her. It’s the truth, isn’t it? 

Emma inhales quickly a big amount of oxygen. 

Her mother arches an eyebrow and looks at her curiously. “Oh, is she now? Well, she may be a princess by blood, but she certainly behaves like a princess raised in a barn.” 

“I can still hear you, old lady.”

She closes momentarily her eyes. The word _Idiot_ seems not sufficient anymore. “Emma,” she hisses, but it is already to late.

Her mother steps closer to Emma, eying her with distaste in her dark eyes and shaking her head. “I see my error. You have magic, but you’re untrained and just a beginner. How foolish of you then to test my patience like this.” 

“Listen, just let us go and we will be out of your hair for good—” 

“Let you go? I just have my daughter back. Do you know that she sent me away? I know, it was that imp that whispered her false hope and promises into her naïve and innocent ears,” she amends and turns around to look at her. She shrinks under the intense gaze of her mother. Her heart briefly stops in her hand, she can taste its fear. “But the worst detail in this whole story is that she decided to come to me with _you_.” 

She knows what will follow and that is why her mother freezes her to the spot. She groans and wants to struggle but the firm magical hold over her body is too strong. The bitter memories of her childhood try to surface to her restless mind. She can only watch. Her heart beats faster, the presentiment of what is to follow makes her feel numb. A cold shiver runs down her spine. 

No. 

Every heartbeat is her name. 

 _Emma. Emma. Emma._  

Her mother’s hand vanishes in Emma’s chest and the Savior gasps and groans and grits her teeth, the pain painted across her pale, tired features. 

 _Stop. Stop. Stop._  

_Not again._

Can hearts cry? Shiver? Die without being crushed to ash?

She can’t even yell.

But she can feel. With her heart in her hand she can finally feel. She’s right. They can break the curse, because what they share is real and strong enough. She want to shed some joyful tears. 

She can also break her mother’s spell. And then she can move, faster than her mother that huffs and talks about love being weakness. Not this time. Not now. Her mind is blank when she puts her own heart into her mothers chest. (It could’ve killed her. She has never tried to put a heart into a different body.) 

Her mother’s hand leaves Emma’s body and almost everything is good. Emma sinks down to her knees, clutching at her chest and breathing heart. “Jesus Christ, what the hell, woman?” 

Her mother is too busy to react to that. “Regina,” she whispers broken and turns around. “Oh my...” 

There is real fear in her eyes and she realizes that she can make her mother feel everything she wants. Her heart is so close, so close. She has the power now. She thinks of every vile, painful and cruel lesson her mother had loved to give her. She feels her own hatred rushing through her body, but it’s in her heart too, more intense, more pure even.

The Queen of Hearts _whimpers_. “Stop, please.”

“Like you stopped when I asked you?” 

“I didn’t know your feelings were so—” 

“I wanted to _run away with him_. In which realm is this not a sign of utter and complete desperation? I wanted to get out, to _get away from you_. But we couldn’t have that, a happy Regina, hm?” Her voice drops, is darker now. Emma looks up, but she notices this movement only out of the corner of her eye. “No, happiness is—just like love—a weakness, isn’t it? Am I right, _Mother_?” Thick black hatred is in her gaze, in her voice and in her heart. She is circling around her mother like a predator is circling around its prey. 

Her mother keeps her eyes shut. “Make it stop, Regina. Make it stop now.”

“Why? It seems to me you have to be reminded of the power emotions can have. The power _I_ have.” 

“You are just like your father,” her mother whispers and this time it is not Emma’s cheek that burns after the loud slap. Her mother looks violated. Scandalized even. “How dare you—!” 

“Stop talking about my father. You destroyed everything. My happiness, my future, _me_. I thought that is what mothers do, you know? To protect their children. To make them strong. But quite the opposite is true. You have no own heart and you can’t love and you thought it’d be wise to doom me to the exact same fate?” 

More hatred, another whimper and finally, her mother joins Emma on the floor. She gets on her knees and balls her hands into fists. The hatred clearly hurts her. Good. 

“Answer me!” 

A swallow. “It was a means to make the marriage to the King much more…bearable. I had to marry your father to ensure your position in the royal family. But I failed. I wanted you to do better and I didn’t want any emotions to interfere with that plan.” 

“Is it too late to ask for a strong drink?” Emma interrupts them and she is still on the floor. “Regina? Just take your heart and let’s go.” 

Her mother looks at her accusingly. “You can’t be serious about this one, though. You could do so much better. And how can you even feel _anything_?” 

She thinks about how much she hates that little imp and Jefferson and that doctor and her mother howls in agony. She goes further, and further, losing herself in the past. She closes her eyes to visit every painful memory more intensively. 

“You’re pathetic, Regina...to hurt your own...mother like this.” Every fragment of her panted sentence is accompanied with a pained cry. 

When she reaches her deep in the back of her mind buried memories of King Leopold and his rude, adamant hands, she senses a movement and opens her eyes.

Emma’s hand are around her mother’s throat. “Careful, lady. I know how to break a neck with bare hands. Been there, done that,” Emma threatens her mother with a dangerously low voice. And without any warning or further instruction on her part, Emma just like that takes her heart out of her mother’s chest. 

It is her mother who looks very pathetic right now. 

It doesn’t please her as much though. Once the dark thoughts and chunks of memories dissipate she feels disturbingly empty and lifeless. Dull and numb.  

How far would she have gone, if Emma hadn’t plugged her heart out? 

She shivers. 

 _B_ _een there, done that_. 

Oh. 

Two sides of the same coin. Now more than ever. 

She takes her heart out of Emma’s careful grasp and casts one last look at her mother. “Goodbye, Mother.” 

Her mother remains quiet and doesn’t look up, doesn’t get up. 

Maybe there are now two fallen queens in her family tree. 

She couldn’t care less. 

*

“Please, can we go home?”

“Just one more thing.”

Emma tries so hard not to roll her eyes, or sniff with annoyance or to simply throw her arms up, but she knows very well that Emma wants to do exactly that. Perhaps all three things at the same time. Then, Emma remembers the heart. “Ah, you want to put it back now?”

“Yes. I know that I can crush hearts in Storybrooke, but can I put hearts back there? I won’t risk anything.” She refuses to look at the bootstrap, wrapped around Emma’s left wrist. 

Emma is too tired to notice anything odd in her voice. One day, she swears to herself, she is going to confess what really happened to Graham, the Huntsman. But not tonight. “Okay. Do you need help or…?” 

“You can put it back, actually.”

“What?”

“No need to wake up whole Wonderland, dear. Just…push it back where it belongs.” 

“But I never tried to do this before and…”

“You opened a prison door with sheer force of will—that’s basically what magic is about—and you stood up to my mother _and_ you already know how to take a heart out. These things are way more complicated than putting a heart back. Trust me.” The last part is a great deal, for both of them. She, doesn’t want to lose the person she gives her trust and Emma, who is not really capable to trust anyone. It’s better, though. She hasn’t tried to run yet.

Emma comes closer, close enough to share her breath with her and touches lightly her hand that holds her heart. She gives it back to her. It’s the most terrifying proof of trust she can come up with. Emma could kill her know. Squeeze her heart until nothing is left but dust and death. She closes her eyes. Because, even though none of this is going to happen she has to brace herself for the emotions.

Emma lifts her hand with the heart. “Is this the wrong moment to tell you that my mother-in-law is the worst in the history of mothers-in-law ever?”

She opens her eyes and gives Emma a long look. “Your mother and I don’t really get along, either.” 

“Sounds like a real ordinary family to me,” she smiles and it says so much, because everything Emma knows about families is either from books or movies and even though it was said as a joke, she said it all the same. Emma considers her as family. Her and Henry, of course. 

She wants to kiss her for that, but then Emma pushes her heart back.


	3. Denouement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me forever to finish this and I am sorry for that. A sore throat and the lack of time are the main reasons for the delay. This is also the last chapter of this brief adventure. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! (And yes, I totally used Freytag's Pyramid to pick titles for my chapters.)

There is pain. 

Everywhere. Perhaps she was worried about the wrong thing the whole time. Maybe her heart is not something that should be in her chest. 

It feels like dying. 

Life hurts. 

# 

“Are you okay?”

She knows this voice. She trusts this voice. But every emotion she hadn’t felt back then, in the Enchanted forest, floods now through her body like a raging storm of fire. It burns. Every wrong she did, every crime she committed—the emotions about every action were preserved in her heart. She’s trapped.

“Regina, can you hear me?”

She is barely conscious, but she can feel the warm strong arms around her.

“Please, say something.” 

And then, the darkness wins. 

# 

They are still in the hat when she opens her eyes, blinks and tries to piece the things together. Emma is still holding her, a worried haunted look in her eyes that immediately vanishes once she realizes that she’s awake again. 

“Welcome back,” Emma whispers and traces the scar above her upper lip with her thumb. 

She takes a deep breath. “How long was I out?” 

“Ten minutes?” 

“Only ten minutes?”

“If you need a break from me, just say so,” Emma teases her, but there is something in her voice that makes this comment indeed a serious one. Emma has so much doubt about herself that she wants to laugh and write down an entire essay about how ridiculous this notion is. 

She sits up, Emma’s arms still around her. She clears her throat and tries her best not to freak about the fluttering of her heart, every time their eyes meet. It makes her feel nostalgic and sad at the same time—the last time she felt like this was with Daniel. “It’s not that. But going through regret, and self-loathing and a range of other rather negative emotions felt like an eternity.” 

“This bad?” 

“You have no idea,” she replies truthfully. Emma still has her heart and since her mother couldn’t take it—for whatever reason—she doesn’t know how life feels like if you lose it and get it back again after a long time. “But I think it’s over now.” She smiles.

Emma joins her. “That’s good. We should go home, then.”

“Yes.” 

They get up to their feet, Emma holding her hand. She comes closer, but she shakes her head. “You can’t kiss me. Not yet.” 

“What?” 

“I … haven’t told you how the curse can be broken.” 

“Well, Henry nags me about this everyday and I highly suspect it has something to do with me and, I dunno, magic?” Emma shrugs and gives her another crooked smile. Together with the blonde curls and the green eyes she does look like a princess, even if she doesn’t behave like one. Which is good. Every princess she had the misfortune to meet (or live with, taking Snow White into account as well) turned out to be incredibly spoiled or boring—or in the worst case both. 

She sighs. The downside of Emma not being a real princess—or what her old world considered to be one—is the fact that she knows so little of how magic and darkness and evil worked in the Enchanted Forest. “I am sure you know some of the most famous fairy tales?” 

“I am stuck in one, or so it seems,” Emma chuckles, before she sobers. “At least, we aren’t singing stupid songs like in the Disney movies.” 

“Emma, don’t change the subject.”

“Fairy tales. I’m all ears.” 

“What is always—Disney version or not—an important part of a fairy tale?” 

“Magic?” 

“Try again.”

“Evil step-mothers?”

She just stares back. 

Emma blushes. “A tad too close to home, huh?” 

“It’s True Love, Emma.”

Emma makes a long face. “Ah, yes. True Love. This is a thing?”

She feel a hysterical laughter bubble up in her throat, because Emma is really standing in front of an evil queen that just got her heart back from Wonderland and still, Emma’s voice is filled with so much suspicion and doubt. The situation is too serious to find it amusing or entertaining. “Yes, it is a thing. You are the product of True Love. That’s why you have magic, that’s why my mother couldn’t take your heart, I believe, and that’s why Rumpelstiltskin picked you as the Savior.” 

“What do you mean, Rumpelstiltskin picked me? Was there a lottery? And is he in Storybrooke? I have a mighty need to punch him, then.” 

“Yes. He goes there by the name ‘Mr Gold’.” 

“Now, that’s subtlety right there.” 

“ _Emma_.” 

“Okay, sorry. I am just … this is one bat shit crazy night. I met your mother and she had for a few seconds her _hand in my chest_ and then my hand was _in your chest_ , so forgive me if I am bit out of it.” 

“I know. But you have to understand that my curse can only be broken by True Love. Or, more specifically, by True Love’s kiss. This is how it works in our old world.”

Emma understands surprisingly quickly where this is going. She blinks and breathes and stares a lot, before breaking the silence. “You think...” 

“I don’t think, _I know_.” She takes Emma’s face in her hands and everything feels so _real_. It’s not just pretending anymore, her heart rate is constantly changing, and her emotions just adapt to that. She’s not quite used to that yet. But she’s getting back there. It’ll just take some time. “The reason why I still managed to fall in love with you or feel unconditional love for Henry is this very fact. True Love is the most powerful magic of all.” 

That sentence started so much in her life and had cost her so dearly. She can still remember little Snow White’s fascinated smile, her soft voice promising her to keep her secret safe.

Emma seems to be speechless, but she still holds her hand. And then she seems to have an idea. She licks her lower lip and clears her throat. “Okay, let me sum it up. You hated Snow White guts because of her betrayal that caused your boyfriend’s death.” 

“Hate. Present tense.” 

“Whatever. And then, you spent a decade to hate her and chase her around and play cat and mouse with her, until you cast the curse that brought everyone to Storybrooke. And after 28 years Snow White’s long lost daughter turns up at your door, because you adopted her son ten years prior—which is quite funny if you think about it or if you have enough booze in your system—, and you two fall in love with each other, even though said daughter is sometimes so mad at you and your bitchiness that she thought about creative ways to kill you on more than just one occasion.” 

She smiles at that. This is familiar terrain, from a certain point of view. The bantering and bickering? That’s how they cope, how they work. “Is this your version of confession time?” 

“Bear with me, I’m almost there.”

She just nods, waiting for the ending of this Emma-fairy tale.

Emma inhales a large amount of air. “So, you fall in love and you make out a few times—without breaking the curse I might add—and then you tell her that their son was right all this time, the town is indeed cursed and you somehow managed to convince her that stealing a hat of the Mad Hatter in the middle of the night is a brilliant idea and Snow White’s daughter follows you willingly, because she’s so madly in love with you that she even insults your mother every chance she gets.” 

“Yes, we need to talk about that. Later.” 

“And now? Now you have your heart back and you tell her that this is something that a fairy tale would consider to be True Love? The Evil Queen and the Savior? The Evil Queen falling for Snow White’s offspring? That’s awfully ironic.” 

She holds her breath. “The irony isn’t lost on me, trust me,” she assures her with a little huff. The universe has really a weird sense of humor. 

Emma gives her a crooked smile. “I do. I really trust you.” 

Her heart feels too warm, as if it is about to melt. 

# 

When they step out of the hat, Henry is still dead to the world. Emma looks at the clock. “That’s not possible. We were just two hours gone? It felt like almost the whole night!” 

“Shh, our son is sleeping.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Time works differently in Wonderland. It has no rules, it shifts and moves on its own accord and liking. A day can last for far longer than 24 hours and sometimes the nights there seem to be endless,” she explains in a whisper, gazing at her son. She feels warm happy tears in her eyes. They don’t sting or burn, because she realizes that this is the first time she sees her son with a heart. 

Emma notices it and doesn’t break the silence, she even steps back.

She doesn’t want to wake him, he needs his sleep. They leave him there, wrapped in his blanket on the couch and go to the kitchen. She is really tired but she has no idea if it’d be appropriate to ask Emma to stay over. She wants her to stay. She wants her to stay and never leave her, like all the others did in her life so far. 

Except Henry. 

He almost pulled away but their talk before their little trip to Wonderland gave her new hope. Maybe not everything is lost. 

“What will happen once the curse is broken?” Emma suddenly asks, leaning against the counter with her elbows. 

She averts her gaze to the clock. Almost 4 a.m. “They will kill me.”

# 

There is a long pause. 

Both hold their breaths. 

# 

“They kill you, just like that?” 

“I did so many terrible things, Emma. You don’t even know half of the crimes I committed during my reign as the Evil Queen.” 

Emma grabs her at her shoulders, not in a painful way. She feels like shrinking underneath Emma’s angry gaze. “Well, I have some breaking news for you: These are the United States of America and we usually don’t just go and kill people we don’t like or who did bad things. Otherwise a lot of stupid celebrities would be dead by now. And don’t get me started on some politicians.” 

“But that’s how our old world worked. And once they get their memories back, most of them are going to be the ignorant and selfish royals they always were. I know that, for I am one of these selfish royals,” she adds. 

“Okay, stop that.” 

“What?”

“Stop saying this shit like you’re okay with it. We just got your heart back.” 

She wraps her arms around Emma’s middle and their noses are almost touching when she looks into Emma’s wide eyes. “I know that I could be happy with you. Well, if you don’t drive me insane, that is. But I lost the right to a happy ending a long time ago and—” 

“No.” 

“No?”

“No. No, you’re not dying. No, you’re not some fuck up that deserves to die. No, you’re a human being and maybe there should be a trial or something to see how many of those ‘selfish royals’ committed their own little crimes.” 

She sighs, the exhaustion taking its toll on her in form of lacking patience with the irritating Savior. “Emma, we’re talking here about mass murder and a lot of death and manipulation and greed. This is not just ‘little crimes’. And maybe there are some kings or queens who’ve done similar things. King George was one cruel king, always trying to get the best out of a situation, no matter what the cost. But so did I. Don’t you see? If you spare my life and forgive my crimes, then you have to forgive them all. Can you do that? Can you forgive all of them? Remember, I am the very reason you had to grow up all by yourself, alone and miserable.” 

“My parents decided to put me in that thing, not you.” Still, there is the fleeting look of doubt in her gaze. 

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong.” She lets her go, walking around the middle island of her perfectly cleaned up kitchen and fills the electric kettle with some water for tea. “Some of your mother’s friends had a great interest in getting you into that wardrobe, because they wanted to see _my_ Dark Curse broken.” 

“Well, that’s … are you trying to make me angry? To set me against you?” 

“Is it working?” 

“I love you,” Emma tells her with a severe voice and she has to turn around and make sure that she didn’t make this up. “Don’t ask me why or when it happened, but somewhere along the way when we were shouting at each other and pranking each other and trying to out match each other, I started to like you a lot more than I should. But there is no going back now, so stop trying to make it happen.”

“They will … they will think I put a spell on you.” 

“But you don’t have magic here, right? ‘Cause I don’t feel mine anymore since we came back here.” 

She nods, because Emma is right. But still, this woman seems to be blind to the nature of people. “They will blame me if you start protecting me.”

“Screw them.” 

“Emma, we’re also talking about your parents here. Snow White and Prince Charming will never believe that you’re doing it because you want to.” 

Emma throws her arms up. “And what are they going to do? Ground me? Ha.” 

“This is serious.”

“No, it’s not, because none of this is going to happen. When we break the curse—it doesn’t even have to be this night—I will stay with you and make sure you’re okay.” 

# 

It’s hard not to kiss her right there and then. 

But somehow she manages to make some tea and fight against the tugging in her chest. 

Stupid, stupid heart. 

# 

They lie next to each other in bed.

Henry is back in his bed after Emma carried him into his room. He didn’t even stir.

And now they are in her bedroom and even though they’re both tired to death they can’t fall asleep. 

“How fast?” Emma mumbles and her fingers are entangled with hers. 

“Hm?” 

“How fast would the curse break?” 

“Immediately, I think. Or … I don’t know. I don’t know how magic works in this land. It took me a while to activate that hat.” 

Emma turns her face in her direction and frowns. “What if it doesn’t break?” 

“Then I out smarted the rules of magic, dear.”

“Don’t be an asshole. I don’t know how that crap works.” 

“It’s not ‘crap’. It’s a powerful force, it can cause great harm, but also create wonderful things.” 

Emma is still staring at her, the frown slowly changing into something else.

“Emma,” she warns half-heartedly (she chuckles internally at that expression, because _really),_ but Emma has other ideas. It’s a part of her whole being, it’s why they argued more often than not in the past. The hand settles on her stomach. 

“You said no kissing,” she reminds her with a lifted eye brow. 

“I did.” 

“So we won’t do that yet.” 

“Emma …” 

“I know, it’s not ideal and I can stop if you want to, but once the curse is broken then we have to deal with a lot of bullshit and we won’t have time for … for that, I guess.” Suddenly the brave and stubborn blonde is flustered and looks away and it occurs to her that this has to be something she hasn’t done for a long time. Not if feelings are involved, she thinks. Because sex itself doesn’t create intimacy. You don’t even have to know the other person’s name.

Even in her dark past it was just about relief and power and maybe a warm body that made her feel less lonely. 

But this is different. 

Like everything with Emma. 

They don’t talk much after that conclusion and it’s slow and almost lazy, because they are still tired, but that doesn’t mean it’s not intense. Emma’s hands and tongue explore every inch of her exposed skin and she lets her. Falling apart like this feels _special_ and _whole_ and _warm._ Her heart beats to fast, her breath is uneven, but she honestly doesn’t care. Not when Emma makes this noise deep in the back of her throat when she scrapes that spot behind her ear with her teeth, while her fingers travel down, passing her navel and making the muscles underneath the warm and soft skin twitch. Not when she arches her back and she moans her name. Not when she herself can’t formulate any coherent thoughts anymore, not with Emma’s fingers deep inside her and her lips close to her lips, kissing her jaw, her cheek and nose. Touching her until she believes to lose her heart or mind or both. It feels like everything and nothing, skin on skin and yet it’s not close enough. 

She doesn’t know how much time it takes to come down from her high. She feels a bit dizzy. 

“I’d really like to kiss you,” Emma’s voice whispers a bit hoarse into her ear, before kissing her throat again. 

“No one’s stopping you, dear.” 

“But—” 

“Just answer me this,” she says a bit out of breath. She feels sweaty and happy. Two things that shouldn’t make her smile like this. “Are you ready to meet your parents? To deal with their point of view? Are you ready to … choose between me and them?”

“Wait, what?” 

“You don’t really think that they will understand, do you? Snow White never particularly cared for others, at least not if it was about me, anyway.” She feels how the good mood, the happiness is already leaving the bedroom that is flooded with gray morning light.

Emma is still half lying atop of her, holding her face. Determination in her kind eyes. “But this time it’s not only about you, is it? It’s about me and you. _Us_.”

And then. 

Then she kisses her. 

# 

Across the town, lying in David’s arms in her apartment, Snow White opens her eyes and remembers everything. She blinks confused and disoriented, sitting up and holding her blanket close to her bare chest. 

David yawns and follows her example and then he frowns. “I … remember,” he whispers and smiles and smiles and smiles, and oh god, he doesn’t know anything about Emma, but she does, because she was Mary-Margaret and lived with Emma.

Emma, who spent the last few months sitting at her kitchen table complaining about the mayor and her bitchiness and how she wants to murder her sometimes, closely followed by half-whispered admissions of attraction and— 

She hides her face in her hands. 

Dear god, _no_.

“Hey, everything okay?” 

David doesn’t know and now she has to tell him, she has to tell him that his sweet little baby girl grew up into a strong, independent women who not only has a son that somehow ended up being raised by the very same woman that was responsible for them being in this land and share him with the Evil Queen, but also (most likely, since Emma still hasn’t returned home yet) shared the bed with her. No, no, no, nothing is okay. 

 _Oh_. “The curse is broken,” she realizes and _oh_. This is huge. And terribly ironic. And wrong. But somehow also right. Because True Love can’t be faked, she knows this much. “David, the curse is broken.”

“I know.” 

“Emma broke the curse.”

David smiles and he looks so much like Emma when she smiles. “Yeah, I know.”

“With True Love’s kiss,” she finally clarifies. 

David nods, the smile slowly falling from his lips. “Ah, I see. Who’s the lucky guy?” 

“Woman.”

“Uhm, what?”

“Woman, David. She’s with a woman right now.” 

“Oh, I see, well. I think as long as it worked it’s fine with me.” The smile is back. 

She takes a deep breath. Holds his hands. Counts to three.

“Even if it’s Regina?” 

#

THE END 


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